The majority of my friends are online. The internet has connected me with people who broaden my horizons, help me learn interesting and important things, and grow as a person. You don’t need to know someone in-person for that to happen anymore. IRL friendships will always be better, all other things being equal, but they’re not the only solution.
7 Days to Die has a terrible problem with the devs not knowing what they want to do with the game. All they know is that the players are doing it wrong.
One author did this, but as a rebuttal to several 1-star reviews claiming he lied in the book. He made it a 1 star review so it would show up on the same page as the people he was arguing against.
To be fair, the sidebar says this is for open-ended and thought-provoking questions. But I can see this place becoming Debate Bro Central if the mods don’t add a rule like “Don’t ask a question if you just want to argue with people over it.”
Saint Benedict Joseph Labre followed a similar path. Though he was from a wealthy family, he strove to live a monastic life. When he was turned down twice, he resorted to becoming a homeless pilgrim who traveled between European holy sites until he died of starvation. Notably, though, he was said to avoid people who were too fond of him and practically sought out opportunities to be downtrodden.
Capitalism isn’t the problem. Any economy run by human beings is going to have cronyism.
So what did he do, then? How can you substantiate it?
Usually when I hear people described as “Christ-like,” it’s used to demote how much power and influence that person has over others - for example, “Donald Trump is a Christ-like figure among the alt-right.” Someone going around and calling themselves that would come across as strange at best.
paranoid and psychotic tendencies
If he was simply insane, then how would he have performed any of his miracles? Or are you going to throw out the parts of the Bible you don’t like and keep the ones that support your position?
Also, I’ve dealt with, and am friends with, plenty of people with what you would call “paranoid and psychotic tendencies.” That you would accuse someone who walked this earth more than 1,900 years ago of having them suggests you either have supreme medical and historical knowledge. Perhaps you’ve spoken with him so you can make an accurate diagnosis?
in which he claims to be God
If he is, then that explains everything he said and did in the Bible. It’s pretty obvious that if he’s God that he would want people to follow him.
This comes off to me as incredibly paranoid
He was talking about Judas, who was stealing money from the ministry and later sold Jesus out for a handful of silver. Calling that out isn’t paranoia.
I’m apparently not the only one who thought Christ seemed mad
If he was just a madman and the people he was “curing” of “demons” were also madmen, those “cures” wouldn’t have happened. No person with schizophrenia has ever been cured of this disorder simply because another person with schizophrenia touched them. I’ve had the disorder for about seven years at this point; I wish it were that simple.
I agree with you that following Jesus doesn’t make a lot of sense unless you’re worshipping him. His entire message is based on his own divinity. If he was just a prophet, then if he was a good one, he wouldn’t be saying things like “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).
I especially like that, despite the fact that you’re the supposed hero, every shot of your hand shows what appears to be a scaly monster’s hand. It makes you wonder who - or what - you really are…
One of my closest friends nearly committed suicide because of how miserable Walmart made his life.
When I actually need to concentrate, I usually stop listening to music. When I want to get into a flow state and it isn’t 100% critical I focus, it could be just about anything. This remix of the Call of Duty World at War Black Cats theme is awesome for that purpose.
I mean, if a guy posted the same stuff about Joe Biden, tried to break into the White House with a pistol, but was stopped before he could pull the trigger, would you call that an assassination attempt? I sure would - he wanted to kill the guy so he went there to do the deed. What other reason would someone have to hide in the bushes on someone else’s property with a gun for 12 hours?
Dude was apparently waiting in the bushes for 12 hours. You don’t do that if you’re not waiting for someone or something. The Second Amendment doesn’t give you the right to camp out on someone else’s property with a gun.
Besides the fact that 3/4 of it is emotional pornography, it’s a trigger for my PTSD.
I use Firefox because it has Unlock Origin.
I forgot to address this from your other comment. If there truly are pointless killings of civilians being carried out by the IDF, those responsible should be punished. I’d be more than happy to see a third-party investigation into Israel’s war effort performed by a neutral, disinterested party. If such a thing were to happen and, for example, certain people made it their goal to kill as many Palestinian civilians as possible, then those people need to be dealt with because they compromise the entire integrity of the IDF while wasting human life. Just like Hamas.
One-off intelligence failures, such as the one time I could find that Israeli hostages were accidentally killed, do not an illegitimate state nor genocide make.
We can do de-radicalization when Hamas decides that watching over 200 of its people die every day isn’t worth however many Jews were killed since October 7th. They started this war, and they should have understood the consequences of breaching the border of a highly militarized society before they did so. Now, instead of paying the price, they’re deflecting all blame to their sworn enemy and basking in neutral-if-not-positive press. If Hamas is truly incapable of coming to such a conclusion, they have no right to exist; not only should there be pressure on Israel and Gaza to declare a truce, but Hamas must be dissolved for the sake of the people of Gaza.
If you think there is any cognitive dissonance here, you’re wrong. My position is simply that Israel has a right to exist and to defend itself from Hamas. That doesn’t mean they get to kill people willy-nilly, that would make them no different from Hamas. You don’t seem to understand that. If Hamas wants to limit civilian casualties in the war that they started, they’re more than free to either stop putting soldiers and materiel in hospitals and schools, or simply surrender. This crisis is self-manufactured.
And again, you are misunderstanding what an execution is. If Israel actually was on a genocidal rampage (like Hamas wants to do), then Gaza would have been nothing but a bloodstain months ago. There would have been zero humanitarian aid reaching Gaza. You stated in an answer to one of my questions that it would be acceptable for Ukraine to fire at soldiers who are using civilians as human shields as long as the goal wasn’t to kill those civilians. And I would agree. Ukraine has as much a right to exist and defend itself from Russia as Israel has a right to exist and defend itself from Hamas. But when it comes to the situation in Gaza, you suddenly change your mind. The situation is the same - there’s a ratio of 3-4:1 civilians to Hamas soldiers killed - but the main difference is where it’s happening. Yes, it’s tragic every time a civilian dies. I agree with you wholeheartedly there. But that doesn’t mean throwing them up like a smokescreen makes Hamas immune to return fire in the war that they started.
No, actually, I am not okay with governments lying about their motives for a war. That’s one reason I despise Russia. But again, if Israel’s goal was to simply wipe out the Gaza strip, everyone there would have been turned to paste months ago. Israel is suspected to have nukes, after all. Instead, they have been warning people ahead of their strikes, and those people died because Hamas refused to evacuate them so they could use them as propaganda pawns in the war that they started.
But why can’t you put a precise number? For one, you can’t value every soldier’s life the exact same way. A guy with an RPG and a stash of a hundred rockets blowing up everything he sees needs to be removed much more swiftly than some dude in the rear lines who mostly just stands around. As another example, taking down a military commander who is ordering the civilians to endure the bombing that Hamas brought upon them would bring the war closer to an end than devoting the same resources to killing said dude standing around doing guard duty. If a hundred civilians have to die in an operation (because Hamas is using them as pawns in the war that they started), then it makes far more sense for the operation to kill Rocket Man or Major Major Major Major than Mr. Guard Duty. Your question is comparing apples to oranges. Additionally, I don’t question the raw casualty counts that the Gaza Health Ministry puts out, I question the accuracy of their estimates of civilians vs. soldiers killed. As they are under the jurisdiction of Hamas, they have every incentive to manipulate those numbers in particular.
We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Again, this goes back to one of the questions I asked you. You stated that it would be acceptable to kill the gunmen before they started shooting innocent people, and then bent over backwards to paint the situation in as much of an anti-Israel light as possible like you don’t actually believe what you just said. If given the opportunity, Hamas will repeat October 7th. Israel should absolutely fortify the border and load up the Iron Dome to prevent this - and confront the military that’s on their doorstep.
Ultimately, this is an exploitable crisis for (what went ignored in your post) Bibi to escape active criminal charges as he maintains immunity in his position of power. Sure, arrest Bibi for his part in radicalizing Palestine and whatever needless casualties are happening. Netanyahu too. But they aren’t the only ones exploiting this crisis.
At this point, a nuke is uncalled for. I mean why not? Because the simple fact is the situation isn’t that severe yet. Nobody opposing Israel at the moment - Gaza, Hamas, whoever you want to call out - has a nuke. That would be an imminent and existential threat to Israel which would need to be addressed immediately. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the only situation in which nukes are permissible with the risk of MAD. But right now, Hamas has an opportunity to surrender every single day. This crisis could end at any moment, if Hamas simply gave up the war that they started. Your statements imply that it’s okay for Israel to get attacked indiscriminately as long as seemingly fewer civilians are killed in the process.
That’s quite not happening when they’re bombing these densely-populated buildings, though. You’re right, they’re using rockets instead. And they’re in positions that can’t be attacked directly, as I already said. And if some malfunction or sabotage happens to the Iron Dome, as unlikely as that might be, all those missile bases will suddenly become a much more serious threat. In that case, how will the people who cried that these installations should never have been targeted react as rockets fall into Israeli territory en masse for the first time in years? And even if that doesn’t happen, Israel still only reports a success rate of 90% for the Iron Dome while they’ve been sitting patiently as Hamas has launched tens of thousands of missiles at them over not just this war, but longer than a decade. Resting on your laurels is a sure way to fail eventually.
That does nothing in terms of permitting Hamas to regroup. It just ensures that civilians are radicalized in greater numbers. Allowing their attacks to continue unimpeded will only embolden Hamas. If lying down and taking it was a feasible strategy, intelligence failures aside, then October 7th wouldn’t have happened because Hamas wouldn’t have wanted to attack.
Nobody said anything about, “Let jews die.” Only one component of your answer actually deals with the imminent problem of rockets raining down on Israel, and it’s just to sit there and take it. No other nation on Earth would be expected to sit around and let their genocidal neighbors indiscriminately launch explosives at their cities, regardless of the defenses in place.
Hamas didn’t attack by tunnels. There are also incredibly easy methods of detecting underground tunnel networks via sonar systems that are already employed around the world. Are you talking about ground-penetrating radar? Because this source says that its maximum depth is around 30 meters and could be as low as 4 feet, while [Hamas routinely digs their tunnels at depths of 50 meters.(https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/GAZA-TUNNELS/gkvldmzorvb/) Maybe it would be feasible if they buried the detector element deep within the soil (which isn’t something I’m sure is possible), but based on this info, it isn’t the guaranteed solution you imply it is.
Israel hasn’t even been able to support a 2 state solution, after all. If this were true, Gaza and the West Bank would not exist. They would have been wiped out. Israel has been extremely effective in war ever since the 1950s.
You don’t seem to understand what “execution” means. Let me put it to you this way: an execution is when you intend to kill someone specific. When the government sentences someone to death and shoots them in the head behind the prison, that is an execution. When the Israeli government is trying to warn people that they’re going to attack a place, Hamas refuses to evacuate them, and they die as a result, that is not an execution.
If Israel is going around, finding civilians, putting them against the wall, and shooting them in the head, that is wrong. But the Geneva Conventions are clear that simply because a military installation has civilians in it does not mean the installation is no longer a legitimate target. That’s the question at hand here. Hamas has been using civilian buildings as military installations for the entire war. Therefore, Israel is justified in bringing those buildings down. One point you are constantly missing is that not only are the combatants in the building holding the civilians hostage, they are an active threat to people miles away. The longer they aren’t dealt with, the worse the situation will become. If they can’t go in there and clear the building floor by floor to specifically only kill the combatants - which is precisely the situation Israel is in - then they have no choices other than to bomb the place or to allow the assaults to continue. It’s a lose-lose situation, but they have an obligation to their own people first and foremost. Why should Israel take the blame when Hamas is the organization that is putting weapons and personnel into a civilian building, launching assaults at them, and refusing to allow the civilians to leave?
October 7th has had a long, long history leading up to it, on both sides. This just happens to be the worst incident in a long time. It likely wouldn’t be as bad as it is today if none of that had happened, or if Israel had listened to their intelligence.
Alright, I will directly answer your questions.
Where, exactly, does the line finally begin to be blurred for you, I wonder…? When Israel begins targeting civilians simply for the sake of killing civilians. Like Hamas does. How many civilians are you willing to execute per alleged Hamas target? This is a false dilemma. You can’t put a precise number on how many civilians should be allowed to die vs. how many Hamas fighters need to die, when it isn’t even clear how many of them are civilians and how many are Hamas fighters. Another confounding factor is the fact that Hamas is actively using its civilian population as a human shield. If they’re allowed to continue doing this, then they’ll just be able to kill every Jew with impunity by strapping babies to themselves, walking through Jerusalem, and shooting anyone they see. Quite simply, I’m not going to put a number on it. Obviously Every measure should be taken to minimize civilian casualties, which Israel has been doing by warning people before the bombs fall and giving them a chance to evacuate. And tell me further, would you also defend Israel if they were to drop a nuke on Gaza? At this point, a nuke is uncalled for. If Gaza had a nuke of their own with the capability to destroy Israel with it, then I would put a stop to that by any means necessary, including a nuke. So tell me, how far does this logic extend? If you’re talking about the logic of accepting civilian casualties in war, then the simple answer is that the military shouldn’t be killing civilians for the sake of killing civilians. They should be as precise as possible with their strikes and avoid killing anyone beyond what is absolutely necessary. As far as I know, the Israeli military is not just going “Hey, let’s kill a bunch of civilians today, it’ll be great.” That’s Hamas’s MO, though. How does killing this many civilians and destabilizing the region by leveling all civilian infrastructure including undermining the capacity for hospitals to operate truly lead to less and not more radicalization in the years to come? It doesn’t. What it does is destroy the enemy’s capability to fight, and when the majority of their country wants your people dead, then that makes sense. Hamas could have prevented every single civilian death over the past year by simply not teaching their people that the Jews must be destroyed, and then acting on that belief by raping and killing over 1,000 innocent people. They brought this upon themselves. What do you think is going to happen to all those orphans and parents of dead children in the decades to come? I can tell you exactly what I would do if I was in their shoes, after all… Nothing pretty. But if the Israeli government allows Hamas to kill Israeli civilians with no retaliation whatsoever, then they’re going to do just that, until there are no more Jews left to complain about the genocidal government next door. How many children is Israel morally permitted to kill in their end goal? None directly for the sake of killing children. But if Hamas holds the children in one hand and spraying bullets from a rifle in the other, then it is ultimately Hamas’s fault if the children get hit with return fire.
I agree that a leadership change is necessary. But as far as I can tell, you have offered no solutions to the problem of an active war other than “let the Jews die.” If Israel gets rid of its idiotic governors and installs people who will at least listen to their intelligence reports, that’s a good start, but right now they also have to contend with a genocidal government next door. While you’re cleaning up inside the government, what would you do about the soldiers killing your people?
“Border security” means nothing against a foe with a tunnel system that’s practically as large and developed as the surface of the country. If you’d like to bury Israeli soldiers underground waiting for Hamas to tunnel to them, I welcome you to relay that to the IDF. Yes, more civilians have died on the Palestinian side, but if Hamas would stop strapping babies to themselves to make it suddenly morally unjustifiable to shoot back, then those deaths wouldn’t have happened.
they’ve ignored intelligence We’ve been over this, I agree that was stupid. killed their own hostages who were unarmed and had a white flag That was a bad snap decision made out in the field, not by Bibi. botched a rescue when they could’ve been saved by a permanent ceasefire No ceasefire with Hamas has ever been permanent. and bombed humanitarian aid convoys I agree that was a failure of intelligence.
Now, since I’ve answered your questions, I’d like to ask you some as well.
Don’t take non-OTC drugs without consulting a physician first. You could really screw yourself up with some of them, the hard stuff especially. The potential ups of doing them aren’t worth the likely losses.
People who take aspirin or ibuprofen take it for a specific purpose, and when they no longer need it, they stop. With things like steroids, heroin, cocaine, and Adderall (if they don’t have specific conditions like ADHD), people frequently end up chasing a horizon that only gets further away the harder they run to catch it. It’s a miserable existence and it causes them, and often their friends and loved ones, endless pain.
You deserve the best from yourself. That includes self-care. You’re more than your flaws and disorders, whatever they may be. Don’t make those an excuse to wreck yourself in pursuit of a goal that probably isn’t real.